


Even Though We Ain't Got Money, I'm So In Love With You, Honey

by metafictionally



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1714469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metafictionally/pseuds/metafictionally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This trip is still the worst idea Chanyeol has ever had but he’s thinking it might be the best, too.</i> Road trip AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even Though We Ain't Got Money, I'm So In Love With You, Honey

**Author's Note:**

> Well I guess I accidentally Chanyeol/Baekhyun. This is all Natalee's fault so blame it on her. YES I KNOW THE ROAD TRIP THING IS DONE TO DEATH I JUST WANTED TO WRITE IT 8( I'M SORRY.
> 
> By the way, the title is from Kenny Loggins' "Danny's Song" which is inexplicably my favorite song of the here and now? I think it's my mom's fault. Whateva!
> 
>  **READ IN:** [Russian](http://ficbook.net/readfic/733072)

It’s the middle of summer when Baekhyun suggests the trip, from where he’s sprawled across Chanyeol’s bed. Chanyeol is leaning against his desk, absently fingering chords on his guitar, and Baekhyun is reading upside-down from the romance quiz section of a teen magazine. "‘If you answered mostly A, your love life could be lacking in spontaneity,’" Baekhyun says, very seriously. "I think our love life is lacking in spontaneity."

"We don’t have a love life," Chanyeol says. He wiggles his toes and fixes his gaze somewhere above—below?—Baekhyun’s nose, focusing. It’s been stiflingly hot, this summer, and Chanyeol doesn’t have air conditioning, so he and Baekhyun are both covered in a thin sheen of sweat—it glistens on Baekhyun’s skin, in the bow of his upper lip.

Chanyeol looks away. 

"We could," Baekhyun says. "Hypothetically."

Ah, hypothetically. Of course. "So hypothetically," Chanyeol says, playing along for now (like he always does), "if our hypothetical love life was lacking in hypothetical spontaneity, what would you suggest we hypothetically do about it?"

"Road trip!" It’s a prompt enough answer that somehow, Chanyeol’s pretty sure it’s not an idea inspired by Baekhyun’s copy of _Seventeen_. "We should take a road trip. We have a car—"

"I have a car," Chanyeol says. "You have a driver’s permit."

Baekhyun heaves a sigh and gives Chanyeol a look. "Fine. _You_ have a car and we both have way too much free time. You’re not allowed to say no."

"But," Chanyeol begins. It’s cute and a little silly that he even tries, because he and Baekhyun both know that he’d agreed before Baekhyun had even opened his mouth. Baekhyun is persuasive, and Chanyeol has always been a little too easy.

"Spontaneity," Baekhyun intones solemnly.

Chanyeol sighs and wiggles his toes again. He'd let Luna put bright pink polish on his nails two weeks ago, and it's flaking off—he'll either have to take it off or let her redo it. "I’m plenty spontaneous. You’ve been trying to think of a way to spring this on me for weeks, haven’t you?" 

When he looks back up, Baekhyun has changed position, shifted to lie across his stomach and prop his chin up in both of his hands. His shirt is riding up a little, exposing a pale strip of skin along his hip and lower back. "You know me so well," he says, and smiles his best charming smile, and yeah, okay, Chanyeol is a little bit doomed. "But I know you pretty well too, which is how I know that was a yes."

It’s hard not to smile, when Baekhyun looks at him like that. "Yeah, yeah," Chanyeol says (like he always does). He ruffles Baekhyun’s hair and rolls away, laughing, from Baekhyun’s attempts to punch his shoulder. "Let’s leave on Thursday."

 

It’s hard to take a road trip in a country where it takes six hours to get from the northernmost point to the southernmost, so Baekhyun and Chanyeol decide to drive the perimeter. "I figured we could go to Daecheon first," Chanyeol says, sitting on the hood of his car, the map spread out over his knees. Their things are in the trunk. Chanyeol envisions a week of sharing motel beds with Baekhyun, a week of watching Baekhyun’s profile lit by summer sun out of the corner of his eye, and wishes that he had the guts to say no. It would make his life so much easier—but Sehun, privately, calls him 'masochist-hyung' for a reason, Chanyeol supposes.

It's just that sometimes Chanyeol feels like he wouldn't be Chanyeol if he didn't have Baekhyun, and that's a little bit scary. They've been friends for years, long enough that Baekhyun calls Chanyeol's mother "Mom" and Chanyeol knows how to stumble from Baekhyun's bed to his bathroom without hitting a single doorframe. It's a long time to be in love with someone as ethereal and totally untouchable as Baekhyun.

"Beach road trip!" Baekhyun exclaims, clapping his hands together, then tilts his head and gives Chanyeol a thoughtful look. "Does this mean we get to try mud wrestling?"

Chanyeol levels a stare at Baekhyun. "Let’s get one thing straight," he says, watching as Baekhyun’s grin widens. "Maybe Daecheon is famous for its mud festivals, but I do not, and I never will, like you enough to get mud in my hair at your request."

Famous last words. Six hours later, Chanyeol sticks his head under a faucet near the beachfront bathrooms, trying and failing to run his fingers through the muddy strands. "I quit," he announces, tugging at a piece of hair. The mud is sticky and thick, and makes his head feel about twenty pounds heavier than it should. "Beach road trip is cancelled, we’re going home."

Baekhyun giggles. "You were having fun until you realized your hair was a mess," he points out. 

Chanyeol glances over. Baekhyun is nothing more than a stunning white grin in a mask of mud, his hair plastered to his face. The mud is cracking around his eyes, where his face wrinkles when he laughs, and Chanyeol’s stomach feels like it’s somewhere around his feet, flopping uselessly. This is completely unfair, but Chanyeol isn't masochist-hyung for nothing.

"Okay, okay," Chanyeol says, turning his face back toward the ground. He takes a deep breath and sticks his head back under the faucet, closing his eyes against the stream and the imprint of Baekhyun’s smile on the inside of his eyelids. "I guess I’ll give you one more chance. But no more mud."

 

Interlude. The freeway cuts through lush hills and valleys, marking Korea as the subtropical climate it is. This late in the year, with the rainy season passed, everything is green and alive, and the sun sparkles off the rice fields, almost blinding. "It looks like jewels buried in the water," Baekhyun observes, leaning his chin on his arm, leaning his arm out the window. 

"Romantic," Chanyeol says, half-teasing. He’s distracted by the curve of Baekhyun’s throat, eyes tracing it from his jaw down to where it disappears below the collar of his shirt. A drop of sweat beads at the nape of his neck. Chanyeol hates his life.

He fixes his eyes back on the road, the endless line of it hugging the hills. _You got yourself into this, Park Chanyeol_ , he thinks, not nearly as bitterly as he wishes he could be.

"If you want to think of it that way," Baekhyun says. From the corner of his eye Chanyeol can see Baekhyun slant him a glance, half-smiling. His eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, but the weight of his grin alone is almost crippling.

"I thought this trip was about bringing spontaneity to our romantic life," Chanyeol points out, although his throat closes strangely around the word _romantic_ , and it comes out more strangled than he’s totally comfortable with. 

A pause.

"Fair enough," Baekhyun says. 

 

Day two. In Gunsan, they walk slowly along the wood-slat walkways in Eunpa Park, hovering what seems like inches above the silvery-blue water of the reservoir. It’s hot, the hottest it’s been in years, said the radio that morning, and they’re alone except for the most intrepid of tourists. "You know this doesn’t count as a beach, right?" Chanyeol points out, pushing his hair off his sticky forehead. His whole body feels damp in the humidity. "Even if there is water and sand."

Baekhyun smiles, his eyes curving into perfect crescents. "I know!" he says, offering a thumbs-up. "But it’s still pretty, right?"

Chanyeol will give him that. The air is still, so the water is placid save for a few slight ripples, and it reflects his face when he leans over the edge of the walkway to look down. "Are there fish in here?" he asks, almost absently, letting his arms drape down towards the water. "I don’t see any fish."

"I don’t know," Baekhyun says. Beside Chanyeol, he hoists himself up to sit on the railing, looking out the opposite direction. Chanyeol thinks about pretending to push him over, but it's too hot for pranks. "Did you know, in China they build water walkways like this, in zig-zags, because demons can only walk in straight lines? If you crossed the zig-zag bridge, the demon could never get you."

They’re in the center of the walkway, suspended on the zig-zag bridge in the middle of the reservoir. Floating inches above the water, safe from demons.

"We could stay like this for a while," Baekhyun says. He looks down at Chanyeol and smiles—he’s already a little sunburned, right across the bridge of his nose. So stunning that it forces Chanyeol to look away or he might be burned. "That would be okay."

"Yeah," Chanyeol agrees absently. He drapes himself over the railing and reaches towards the water, thinking about bridges and demons and all the things you can’t outrun. "That would be fine."

 

Interlude. They stay at a motel just off the freeway, a place run by a sweet, hard-of-hearing elderly couple who offer them lukewarm sodas and homemade kimbap rolls. The only rooms they have are twins, the woman explains, only one bed. Baekhyun shrugs and smiles up at Chanyeol in that guileless, charming way of his, and Chanyeol tries his best to smile back. It’s not easy.

The room has no air conditioning. The night is muggy, heat like wet wool settling on their skins and weighting them down. Chanyeol falls backwards onto the bed and sprawls across it, his limbs taking up all the space there is—reveling in the last of his personal space before he cuddles up to Baekhyun for the night. When he extends, Chanyeol's fingertips reach from one edge of the bed to the other, and his feet hang off the edge by a few inches. This is going to be a tight fit.

"You’re so big," Baekhyun says from the foot of the bed. He has his hands on his hips, his head cocked to one side, and he's clearly trying not to grin.

"So I’ve been told." Chanyeol stretches out, then sits up, offering Baekhyun the spot next to him. "We probably look pretty funny when we walk down the street next to each other."

Baekhyun is small, delicate. When Chanyeol had first met him, years ago, he’d worried for a while that one day he’d break Baekhyun on accident, because Chanyeol was—and is still—not exactly known for his grace. At fifteen, several inches taller than almost all of his peers, Chanyeol's body had been something foreign and not entirely under his control, and Baekhyun had been stubbornly smaller than anyone else they knew. But Baekhyun, Chanyeol had quickly discovered, was remarkably resilient. Maybe it’s that same resilience that has let him be Chanyeol’s best friend for all this time.

"Probably." Baekhyun holds up one hand, and Chanyeol reaches up to press his own palm against it. Baekhyun’s hands are much smaller than Chanyeol’s, and Chanyeol bends his fingertips down over Baekhyun’s just because he can. "That’s okay, though. I don’t really care."

"Me either," Chanyeol agrees.

Later, Chanyeol wakes up to Baekhyun with his head pillowed on Chanyeol’s shoulder, breath fanning soft and warm across his chest. In the faint light from the lamp outside their door, Chanyeol can make out the slope of Baekhyun’s nose, the way his lips are slightly parted. Inhale, exhale. Baekhyun is a warm and reassuring presence at Chanyeol’s side, and Chanyeol can’t bring himself to move away.

 

Day three. They stop in Mokpo and walk to the harbor, where the buy carryout cartons of spicy seafood soup, so hot it burns their tongues. "The further south you go the spicier things get," Baekhyun observes, his eyes and mouth scrunched up against the burn of chili pepper. He looks like he’s about to cry, but Baekhyun isn’t the type to give up until the very last. Especially not when Chanyeol is still going strong. 

"Seems like it," Chanyeol agrees.

He’d heard once, a long time ago, that the further south you go in Korea, the rougher the people are—like all the city’s sharp edges get ground down into the broad, unassuming people of Jeollanam-do and Gyeongsangnam-do. Chanyeol doesn’t know about that, really, but he likes the simplicity of this: the ocean, the harbor, Baekhyun sitting next to him, sunburned pink and gorgeous with his legs dangling off the pier. 

Baekhyun takes another bite of soup, then puts his container down. "I’m defeated," he says, sticking his tongue out puppy-like and fanning it with one hand. "I think that was literally the spiciest anything I’ve ever put in my mouth. How are you still alive?"

Chanyeol grins and sets his container down too. "I was hoping you’d give up first," he says, or tries to say, because his tongue doesn’t seem to want to do what he wants it to do right now. "I’ve been dying for the last five minutes, I was just waiting for you to cave."

He evades Baekhyun’s attempt at shoving him off the pier and falls over onto his side, laughing, facing up to the sky. Chanyeol knows he must look like a fool, spread out like a starfish over the pier, but he doesn’t really care, because it’s a beautiful day and his tongue hurts and Baekhyun is grinning at him, and Baekhyun’s hand is on Chanyeol’s knee, and this trip is still the worst idea Chanyeol has ever had but he’s thinking it might be the best, too. 

"I’m really glad I know you," Chanyeol says, propping one hand up under his head so he can watch the way Baekhyun pauses, the way his eyes widen and the way his lips purse. "I’m really glad I have a best friend who makes me take road trips around the entire perimeter of Korea with him on a whim in the middle of the hottest summer in the history of the world."

Baekhyun is used to praise, for everything from his smile to his voice, but Chanyeol is stingy with his compliments—he likes to make sure people deserve them. Maybe that’s why Baekhyun seems suddenly shy, ducking his head and smiling softly. "Me, too," he says, glancing up at Chanyeol through the feathers of his eyelashes. "Thanks, Chanyeol."

"No, you," Chanyeol replies, and Baekhyun laughs, and all is right in the world.

On the way back to the car, Chanyeol slings his arm around Baekhyun’s shoulders and ruffles his hair, refusing to let Baekhyun squirm away. And he thinks, maybe it’s worth it, like this. Chanyeol's a simple person, he doesn't need much. If this is all he can ask for—Baekhyun laughing and pushing at him and calling him names—then maybe he’d be content.

 

Interlude. Something Chanyeol had discovered, six months into his and Baekhyun’s friendship, was that Baekhyun laughs like an idiot.

No, he doesn’t always. He has the laugh that he laughs for people he doesn’t know, or people he barely knows—because Baekhyun is conscious of appearances in a way Chanyeol could never be, and he knows instinctively when people are watching. Baekhyun’s public laugh is soft and sweet and charming, makes noonas unable to decide whether they want to kiss him or give him ice cream. It’s a pretty laugh, Chanyeol doesn’t mind it.

But when Baekhyun laughs for real, he laughs with his whole body, and the laugh is almost soundless, punctuated by wheezes. His whole face becomes his smile, almost, and his eyes curve up until you almost can’t see them. As much as Chanyeol likes Baekhyun's quiet laugh, he likes this one more, thinks it's charming in how totally dorky it is. 

But more than that, it's that Baekhyun doesn't laugh like this in front of anyone. Chanyeol sees this laugh often, though, and he selfishly likes to think he’s the only one who does. 

 

In Busan, Baekhyun takes Chanyeol’s hand and drags him bodily into the water at Haeundae, which is still cold despite the heat of summer. They're both fully clothed, but Baekhyun had seen the water and it had been like he had no choice—either drag them both in or die trying, so Chanyeol had gone along. He has a change of clothes in the car, anyway.

It's hard to run in water, and Baekhyun's legs don't clear the surface the way Chanyeol's do for the first few steps, so between them they end up soaked—Baekhyun up to his armpits and Chanyeol halfway up his stomach, and they stand in the water at waist depth and Chanyeol imitates the seagulls flying overhead, and Baekhyun ducks his head like he's pretending they're strangers.

"I bet they're waiting for us to feed them," Chanyeol points out, staring up at the seagulls circling overhead. 

"I have no plans to do that," Baekhyun says. "Any food I have is going into my mouth, and nobody else's."

"Except mine." Chanyeol thinks that's a fair assessment, since most of the time they each end up eating half the other's plate. Baekhyun doesn't ask anymore before he steals Chanyeol's fries, and Chanyeol doesn't think twice about drinking Baekhyun's soda. He doesn't think they've asked since they were sixteen, honestly.

Chanyeol looks back down at Baekhyun, who's still looking up at the seagulls. He's beautiful, Chanyeol thinks, not for the first time—his hair is salty and messy, but the sunburn across his nose has faded to a tan, and he has goosebumps up the back of his neck, probably from the chill in the water. His t-shirt is white, and also very wet, and through the thin fabric Chanyeol can see his nipples and the dark shadow of hair leading down from his navel. 

If ever there were a terrible place to get a hard-on, the ocean at Haeundae would be it.

"What are you looking at?" Baekhyun asks, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks a little pink, but Chanyeol can't be sure. "This isn't a wet t-shirt contest, creep."

When in doubt, make a joke. "Who says?" Chanyeol says, grinning wide and wiggling his eyebrows. He's not sure it counts as a success when Baekhyun rolls his eyes, but there's not much time to think on it. Baekhyun curves his hands into scoops and splashes Chaneyol full in the face, sending saltwater up his nose and making him sputter.

"Oh, you're dead meat, Byun Baekhyun," he announces, assuming a defensive stance.

Five minutes of brutal water warfare later, Chanyeol ends it decisively by dunking Baekhyun and then picking him up, bridal-style, and spinning around with him. "Okay, okay!" Baekhyun shouts through his laughter, clinging to Chanyeol's neck. "I give, you win. Uncle."

"Park Chanyeol is the best," Chanyeol says. "Say it."

"Say what?" Baekhyun is all sweetness and sugar when he smiles up at Chanyeol. "I didn't catch that."

"Park Chanyeol is the best!"

"I can't tell lies or my nose will grow." There's a playful lilt to Baekhyun's voice that Chanyeol loves. He loves that he gets to see Baekhyun like this, disheveled and laughing and totally un-self-conscious, in a way that Baekhyun so rarely is. Chanyeol's good-looking, he knows, but he's never been radiant like Baekhyun, and he's never had enough self-awareness to know when people are watching. When he can make Baekhyun forget that, it feels like a victory.

"I'll drop you," Chanyeol says. 

Baekhyun laughs and looks up at him, and it hits Chanyeol all over again, all of a sudden like a punch in the chest, that he is totally and stupidly in love with this boy. In the fading sunlight Baekhyun is glorious, his skin golden and his eyes a color of brown that Chanyeol has never seen before, anywhere. He's beautiful, made even more so by his stupid full-body laugh and his tiny hands and the way he fits into Chanyeol's arms like he was meant to be there. 

Chanyeol doesn't know who Chanyeol is without Baekhyun. Didn't he say that once? 

"Chanyeol," Baekhyun says, very softly. His smile is fading. Maybe some of what Chanyeol's thinking is visible on his face, or maybe Baekhyun has suddenly become telepathic. Either way, there's something at once soft and heavy in Baekhyun's gaze, something that makes Chanyeol feel like Baekhyun is about to start a conversation he's not ready to have.

So he does what any sane person would do: "Last one to the beach buys dinner," he says, and throws Baekhyun bodily back into the sea.

 

Interlude. Baekhyun comes out of the motel room's bathroom in his boxers with a towel draped over his head and flops face-first into the bed closest to him, the one he'd claimed as soon as they'd come into the room. He hasn't said a word to Chanyeol since they drove up the coast from Busan to Onyang-eup, the silence occupied by the radio in Chanyeol's car and the sound of the waves coming in through Baekhyun's open window. Baekhyun had watched the sunset and Chanyeol had watched Baekhyun, when he wasn't watching the road, wondering what he can do to fix this.

It would probably help if he knew what was wrong. Chanyeol figures it has something to do with throwing Baekhyun into the water, but that doesn't seem like it deserves this silent treatment.

"Do you want to watch TV?" Chanyeol asks. The question sounds needy and awkward, and he regrets the words almost as soon as he says them. "Or—nevermind."

Baekhyun shrugs. The light from the bathroom cuts across his bed and illuminates his expression. Chanyeol has seen this kind of carefully-practiced boredom and indifference on Baekhyun's face, but it's never been directed towards him. Not once, not in all the years they've known each other.

"Baek," Chanyeol says. 

Silence. In the background, the TV is playing a nightly news program about fishing in the East Sea. 

"Baek, cut it out," Chanyeol says. He sounds weak, he knows, but that's about how he feels right now. This is unsettling. He has no idea how to deal with Baekhyun when he's like this—it's a skill Chanyeol has never needed to know. "I'm sorry, okay? If this is about me dunking you—I'm sorry. I didn't mean… I'm sorry, okay?" 

"It's not about the dunking," Baekhyun says. It's not what Chanyeol wants to hear, but it's a start, because at least Baekhyun's talking. That's better than the last couple of hours.

"Then what is it about?" Chanyeol asks. "I want to fix this, Baekhyun. Please."

The way that Baekhyun sits up, angling his body towards Chanyeol, makes it seem like he's about to explain. Instead, he just falls silent again, looking at Chanyeol, studying his face like he's trying to relearn it. Under this kind of scrutiny Chanyeol feels totally bared, and maybe he is, because Baekhyun has always been easy for him to read but Chanyeol knows that he's no different. Baekhyun knows him. Baekhyun knows the meaning of every expression that crosses Chanyeol's face, and this one—something like uncertainty and worry and shame—must not be any different.

"Nevermind," Baekhyun finally says. "Don't worry about it, okay?" 

Chanyeol's about to protest, but Baekhyun smiles, and it's the smile that Chanyeol knows he means—not his rehearsed public smile, but the one that he saves for when they're alone, the one that makes his eyes curve up until they disappear. Chanyeol is totally helpless in the face of that smile, so he just says, "Okay."

"Let's go to sleep," Baekhyun says. "I'm exhausted."

They turn out the lights in separate beds, but at two in the morning Chanyeol wakes up to Baekhyun, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, pulling back his covers and sliding into bed with Chanyeol. "I can't sleep over there," he explains, his voice soft, and Chanyeol imagines he means _I can't sleep without you_. 

"Okay," Chanyeol says. There's not really space in the bed for him to scoot and make room, but he does anyway, and Baekhyun's body fits into his like it was meant to be there. Baekhyun's head on Chanyeol's bicep, his face pressed into the place where Chanyeol's throat meets his shoulder, Chanyeol's arm draped around Baekhyun's waist. Sleeping like lovers. 

In the morning Baekhyun is laughing again, and Chanyeol thinks they'll probably be okay.

 

In Pohang, Baekhyun takes Chanyeol's hand and drags him into the thick of the crush of people standing on the sand at Bukbu Beach, waiting for the fireworks to start. It's good, because it doesn't matter that Chanyeol is several inches taller than most of these people, and it doesn't matter that Baekhyun is several inches shorter—when everyone is looking up, nothing matters but the sky. 

There are hundreds of people there, packed as close together as they can be together on the beach. Bodies press against Chanyeol from all sides, and on instinct he wraps an arm around Baekhyun—around his shoulders, across the front of his chest, holding him close. 

"Worried you'll lose me?" Baekhyun asks. His voice is soft, but it still carries. Proximity, maybe.

It's strange, but Chanyeol gets the feeling that Baekhyun's asking another question, something much softer and more tender, hidden inside this question. But he doesn't know how to answer it, so he just says, simply, "Yes."

Baekhyun relaxes a little, leaning back into him, and Chanyeol takes his weight easily. "I'm not going anywhere," Baekhyun says, tilting his head back against Chanyeol's chest to smile up at him. "Can't get rid of me that easily, Park Chanyeol."

"Who says I want to get rid of you?" Chanyeol crosses his eyes down at Baekhyun, who laughs and looks away.

The fireworks, when they start, are beautiful. But Chanyeol's focus is only half on them—the rest of it is on Baekhyun and his reassuring presence against Chanyeol, the way their chests rise and fall in time. Like Chanyeol's body, catching up with the rest of him, has finally synchronized itself to Baekhyun. Baekhyun watches the fireworks and Chanyeol watches him, and thinks about a lot of things, like bridges that demons can't cross and jewels glittering from the water under rice paddies, like the way Baekhyun's knee fits between Chanyeol's like it was made to be there, like the way he's completely in love.

"Stop staring at me," Baekhyun says. He's not even looking at Chanyeol, his eyes focused up on the sky above both of their heads. "Creep."

"You have something on your nose," Chanyeol says, and laughs when Baekhyun's hand flies up to rub at the skin. It's not mature, but it's the most he could do, because his only other option was to say, no holds barred, _I've been in love with you since the week we met._

But even when Baekhyun is glaring up at him, trying his best not to laugh, Chanyeol knows it's true. 

 

Interlude. After the fireworks, Baekhyun and Chanyeol sit at the end of a pier extending out into the water. It's been dark a long time, but the harbor is lit by streetlamps and dock lights, painting everything a strange, ethereal kind of shade of orange. Chanyeol can't decide whether he finds it unsettling or beautiful.

"We really only have one day left of road trip," Baekhyun says. He's leaning back on both hands on the pier, looking up at the sky—the stars aren't visible, not with so much light pollution, but it's nice to look anyway. "We'll be going to Donghae-si tomorrow, right? And then home." 

Chanyeol has been trying hard not to think too much about it. He's not sure what it is that makes his stomach sink—whether it's the idea of ending this adventure, that simply, or whether he just doesn't want to go back to the routine of their lives before. 

"Yeah," he says. He leans forward, looking over the edge of the pier down to where his sneakers are dangling. "I guess you're right."

Baekhyun rests his hand gently between Chanyeol's shoulderblades. "I'm not really looking forward to it," he says. In the darkness, it sounds like a confession.

"Me, either." 

They fall silent. Chanyeol feels Baekhyun's fingertips move, tracing under his shoulderblade and up to his shoulder, down his bicep and over his elbow. Baekhyun's hand is light and warm and gentle, just like the rest of him, and his touch raises goosebumps in its wake. Over all the time they've known each other, Chanyeol has come to understand that when Baekhyun doesn't know what to say, he says it with touches instead, but this seems different. Quieter, somehow. 

"We could stay like this for a while," Baekhyun says. His fingertips trail down Chanyeol's wrist, and then he links his fingers into the spaces between Chanyeol's, folding their hands together. "That would be okay."

Chanyeol looks down at their joined hands, Baekhyun's small hand enveloped in Chanyeol's larger one. "Yeah," he says, closing his fingers around Baekhyun's and smiling when Baekhyun's head comes to rest on his shoulder. "That would be okay."

 

Somewhere between Donghae-si and Seoul, Baekhyun starts singing along to the songs on the radio, even the ones he doesn't know the words to, and Chanyeol makes the mistake of looking over at him.

It's a mistake because Baekhyun is beautiful. In the late afternoon, with the sun sitting heavy and full in the lower belly of the sky, Baekhyun is painted gold by fingers of light. He has his feet on the dashboard, his arm hanging out the window, and he's smiling, the kind of quiet, private smile that makes Chanyeol want to kiss him, lick those secrets right out of his mouth. His sunglasses are low on his face and his eyes are lidded, lashes casting long, dark shadows over his cheeks, and he's beautiful, and Chanyeol is in love.

He pulls the car over into the gravel on the side of the road, and Baekhyun looks up at him, lazy and sunbaked. "Pee break?" he asks. "You couldn't wait until we hit a gas station?"

"No," Chanyeol says, and then he kisses Baekhyun. He just leans over and slides his fingers through Baekhyun's hair and kisses him, and Baekhyun's skin is warm and smells like fresh air and sunshine. His mouth is yielding and impossibly soft under Chanyeol's. This is all the things that have been building up, over the last few days or months or years, until Chanyeol couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Baekhyun pulls back, then presses a few softer, gentler kisses against Chanyeol's mouth. When they pull apart for real, he looks at Chanyeol from over the top of his sunglasses, and Chanyeol thinks he's too beautiful to be real. A little flushed, either sunkissed or shy, and Baekhyun presses his fingers against his own mouth.

Chanyeol smiles. "You know I'm spontaneous."

"And impulsive," Baekhyun agrees, his lips pulling into a half-smile. He gives Chanyeol a contemplative look, like there's something he wants to say—but in the end, he says nothing. He just reaches out and takes hold of Chanyeol's collar and pulls him back in, kisses him again, searching and thorough and possessive.

They could stay like this for a while, Chanyeol thinks. That would be okay.


End file.
